


Let Go, Free The Past

by Cas_tellations



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Flashbacks, Love Confessions, M/M, Post Season 6, Season 6 Spoilers, aftermath of... boyfriend coming back from the dead?, essentially that's what this is, gay shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 05:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14969885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cas_tellations/pseuds/Cas_tellations
Summary: Shiro is back.It's a good thing, it really is. But Keith's having a hard time processing everything and his first instinct is to shut everyone out. He finds himself in the black lion's cockpit with nothing other than an old bottle of nunvill, a cosmic wolf and hell of a lot of emotions.





	Let Go, Free The Past

**Author's Note:**

> This is my way of processing how I feel after season 6 because GODDAMN 
> 
> There's gonna be two chapters in this fic, and then they're be another fic in the same series of these same events from Shiro's perspective and depending on how I feel I'll do Another fic of them going back to Earth :)
> 
> **edit;  
> I said that there was gonna be too chapters (an angst one and a hurt/comfort one) but now honestly im just gonna leave it at this.

 

 

“You found me.” Shiro says, white hair framing his face, with a voice like a rising sun; with a voice like coming home. 

 

A breath escapes Keith’s lips, “always.”

 

But it’s harder, after Shiro has initially returned, when Keith starts the long journey of healing from the wounds left over from his battle with Shiro. And those are just the physical wounds, the ones inside his mind will take longer, sucking away at his being, causing him to stare off blankly into space for much longer than just a couple days. Two nights have passed since the real Shiro had returned, and keith doesn’t know if everything will ever go back to normal - back to the way things had been before voltron had happened in the first place. He supposes that they will never go back to the way that they used to be. War changes people, after all.

 

Remembering what Haggar had done to Shiro leads to Keith dry heaving over a toilet, eyes squeezed shut as tears stream down his cheeks.  _ They killed him.  _ He thinks - he had thought, after the battle, with Shiro tucked into his arms, that the worst was over; that everything from then on would be just fine because he had  _ Shiro  _ back. The very same Shiro that had done everything in his power to get Keith into the Garrison because he saw something in Keith that other people just ignored. 

 

Shiro had seen the determination in Keith before he had ever seen the overwhelming anger. He had seen the light in Keith’s eyes, before he ever saw Keith’s hatred for the world. 

 

Keith wipes at his mouth the the back of his hand, and then rolls to the side, leaning against a wall, allowing his head to thump back uncomfortable, sending a sharp crack ringing throughout the small, echoing room. 

 

_ I won’t give up on you, not now, not ever. Because you were all that I had, because you were everything. God, you were the fucking sun and you had caught me up in your gravitational pull and - and I was crashing. Right into you. _

 

He would never let Shiro go because Shiro had never let Keith go. Not once had he allowed Keith to sulk, not once would he abandon Keith when he needed it the most. 

 

Keith touches his fingertips to the scar on his cheek. It still hurts, a bit. How long has it been since the scar appeared? A little under 48 hours ago, he’d wager. He wonders, vauguly, if it will ever stop hurting. Maybe it won’t, and he’ll have to live out the rest of his life with half of his face feeling as if it was on fire. 

 

That’s what it’s like when the real Shiro comes back. Hiding away, isolating himself so as to not bring others down with him. They’re on the moon of a planet in a solar system on the opposite side of the universe from Earth. Keith is in the black lion’s cockpit, nursing his overwhelming emotions with a dusty bottle of nunville he had found in a cupboard underneath the lion’s dashboard.

 

Forgetting isn’t something that he has the privilege to do. Oh, how he longs for it thought. He wishes with his whole heart that he could  _ somehow  _ forget  _ everything, _ because this right now - the constant buzzing in his mind, the nausea at the thought of all those Shiros (all those  _ clones,  _ he curses silently. Not Shiro, not his Shiro at the very least.) stuck inside cyro chambers, dead to the world and yet still ready and waiting to leap up, ripping lives to shreds as though nothing matters. 

 

Everything matters. 

 

Every little thing, no matter how small or how large. 

 

Shiro - his Shiro - the  _ real  _ Shiro, spends too much time apologizing. 

 

“I’m  _ sorry,  _ Keith _ \-  _ I’m so, so sorry.”

 

“Sorry for what?” Keith had asked, when Shiro had apologized. Though somehow, it wasn’t phrased as a question. “Sorry for dying? Because that’s a really shitty thing to be sorry about.”

 

“No. I meant I’m sorry for leaving you.” Shiro had said, with an awful, twisted, guilty look upon his face. 

 

“It’s not your fault,” Keith had said, over and over again, repeating it like some sort of mantra. “It’s okay now, everything’s okay now.” Like a broken record. 

 

But everything’s not okay -- not really. Because keith can still feel Shiro’s- 

 

No. Not Shiro’s.  _ The clone’s  _ blade, clashing against his own, forcing him to fight harder and faster than ever before. The wounds ran deep and Keith had ached. Above the physical pain though, was the undoubted fear. The fear of what Shiro could do to him and the fear of what Shiro could do to himself. 

 

Keith had been grasping at fragments, trying to make sense of the whole picture when he only had half the letters to make up a word. 

 

“I love you.” Keith had said, his voice raw with emotion, cracked an frayed around the edges, gasping for breath, grasping for the last dregs of his already used-up strength. It had been true, after all. The love, even though years had past and they’d been ripped apart more then either of them would want to admit, the responsibilities of saving the universe coming before saving their relationship. 

 

For a second, Shiro had paused. Eyes widening and mouth dropping from a snarl. It had looked as though  _ his  _ Shiro had finally returned. But the purple in his eyes hadn’t subsided and he had shaken off his momentary shock. 

 

In the cockpit of his lion, if he could even call it his lion anymore, Keith runs a shaking hand through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. He movements are deft and limp, lacking the sharp wit that they had always previously been prone to. 

 

_ Shiro had died.  _

 

And Keith had settled for the clone left in his place, refusing to acknowledge Shiro’s differences. Because everybody changes during war, Keith had told himself. Hell, even he changed. All of his teammates had changed. Experiences shape people into who they are, and war’s cruel tongue of terror was no exception to that rule. 

 

He had named the wolf Sasha. At first, his mother had frowned at the name, claiming that it sounded too much like an Earthling name. 

 

“That’s because it is an Earth name.” Keith had snapped, “After all, that’s where I grew up, that’s where you left me.” 

 

Maybe it had been wrong, to snap at her. He had apologised soon after, and she had accepted his apology with a thin smile. The three of them had spent two whole years alone together on that creature - a space whale, he affectionately dubbed it. They had spent their time dodging between celestial bodies, with no room to hold a grudge. Two years had been enough time to repair, or rebuild their relationship slightly. Keith told her stories about his Father and his childhood, leaving out the parts of his death. Leaving out his own pain and suffering, and skipping forwards to stories of the Garrison. Though she had found out about his death anyway, during one of the many flashes from the past. She had cried - and Keith had not known how to help her. Talking about his father’s death would hurt too much to talk about, and thankfully she seemed to understand that.

 

He was open about other things though. He readily told stories of riding Shiro’s hoverbike through the desert late in the evening after supper, just to go watch the sunset together. 

 

Stories of the things he learned, stories of climbing to the top in all of his classes, stories of working hard to reach the goals he had set for himself in life. He tells her of the first time that he had experienced a flight simulation, and told her of the first time he’d beat Shiro’s flight scores. 

 

He told her of his 17th birthday, the one where Shiro had bought a cake and put Keith’s name on the top in obnoxious red icing. He didn’t tell her that Shiro had kissed the red icing off of his lips and pulled him close, Keith’s head resting on Shiro’s chest as they lay on the roof, watching, with matching grins on their faces, as the stars began to come out, one by one, until the sky way covered in them. 

 

Trying to stay in the present is so hard, and he takes a swig from the flask of nunville, openingly grimacing at the taste. 

 

Sasha lies at his feet, snoring softly and occasionally flicking his tail. 

 

“God, how did we get here, Sash?” Keith mutters, his words slightly slurred together, vowels catching upon one another. “How the fuck did we get here?” 

 

Sasha pricks up an ear, but offers no answer. Keith sighs again, and it’s a long, drawn-out, heavy sound. 

 

Keith isn’t  _ avoiding  _ the rest of the paladins, but it’s hard. He keeps saying that:  _ ‘but it’s hard - but everything’s so hard and everything hurts-.’ _ Because Shiro had died, and now returned, with apologies tumbling from the very same lips that used to kiss Keith. Because Keith is tired, and wants to forget. But most of all, it’s hard because he wants to go home.

 

He’s just not sure where that home is, not anymore. 

 

Once upon a time he would have easily found his home within Shiro, on Earth, in a little shack in the middle of the desert.

 

“I love you.” Keith had said, raw and broken, completely exposed, the words meant to reassure Shiro, to reassure  _ himself _ . Even if everything changed -- even if it wasn’t Shiro, but a close, even if the world turned itself upside-down, Keith knows one thing for sure.

 

He will always love Shiro. To the end of time and beyond that, Shiro would take with him a piece of Keith’s heart. 

 

Static crackles through the cockpit and then Krolia’s voice takes shape, a soft, soothing sound, like she knows exactly what Keith wants to hear. 

 

“You should come outside,” she says, and he can hear the sympathetic smile on her face, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

 

“I’m alright.” Keith says, and Krolia knows it’s a lie. It hasn’t been long, only two nights since Shiro had returned. At first, keith had been overwhelmingly happen. But then the events of the previous few days had caught up to him.

 

“Just come out, Keith. We all miss you…” She lets her voice trail off. She’s giving him an opening, letting him have the opportunity to make an excuse. 

 

“I’m alright.” Keith repeats. He hopes that his mother cannot hear the way his words become slurred. “I’ll stay here for now - I’ve got Sash for company.”

 

“The princess is worried.” Krolia says. 

 

“I know. I just - need time, please.”

 

“Okay.” The word is hushed, barely even a whisper. “Okay.” She repeats a bit louder, a bit harder. “But we’re going to make plans for what to do next, about the castle and how we’re going to get to Earth. Not yet. But - soon. Tomorrow, most likely. The Princess doesn’t seem to think that Shiro will respond well to long amounts of space travel right now. Pidge and Hunk are sorting everything out. You’ll come down tomorrow then, won’t you?” 

 

“Yes.”

 

“Thank you.” She says, and then she is gone, like mist being burnt away in the morning. 

 

Keith takes another sip of the nunville and slips onto the floor next to Sasha, burying one of his hands through the wolf’s thick fur. “We’re fine, Sashka.” Keith says. It’s too quiet, too hushed to be real. It’s not enough to be true. “We’re fine.” Keith says again, but it still falls flat. 

 

He falls asleep, his head tipped back against his chair, the flask of nunville resting against his thigh, and his hand buried in Sasha’s long fur. 

 

His dreams are restless, nightmares taking over his peace effortlessly. There’s Shiro - always Shiro, eyes narrowed, shoulders tense, blood dripping freely. He screams - a loud, untamed sound. Accusations fall from his lips freely and Keith wants to  _ escape  _ he wants to  _ get away  _ because  _ his  _ Shiro would never do this and yet - 

 

-a man with Shiro’s face and Shiro’s voice stands before him and tells him that he should have abandoned him, just as his parents had. 

 

Keith is fighting for his life - his blade clashing up against Shiro’s in a flurry of sparks. In his nightmare, Keith didn’t catch Shiro. 

 

In his nightmare, Keith watched as Shiro falls. Down, down, down. Until the brightness overwhelmed him and he blinks and then - 

 

-and then Shiro is gone. Like he had never been there at all. 

 

He wakes up because Sasha is barking. He jerks up, pain flooding his head and bile rising in his throat. Cold sweat settles across his body and he swallows a sob past the lump lodged in his throat. Panic encases him for too long before he’s able to shake it loose. 

 

Sasha nudges himself close to Keith, curling up around his body, a low whine rumbling through the cockpit. And Keith clings to him, burying his face in his long fur, trying to catch his breath. But Shiro’s eyes keep flashing in his mind - the eyes of a younger Shiro, light and teasing, always with a joke on his lips. An older Shiro, with serious eyes, turning his back on Keith as he walks towards a spaceship, bound for Kerberos. Again, later, scared and aged beyond his years, telling Keith about what he remembers from galra prison. 

 

The eyes that had crinkled around the edges as he sits on the floor with Keith by his side in the castle, looking through giant windows at the stars above. 

 

He sees the eyes of a clone who didn’t know that he was being controlled by someone else. 

 

He sees the eyes of a madman, taking orders from a witch, trying to kill Keith - trying to kill the person who he had sworn to always stand beside, no matter what. 

 

He had never thought that this is where he’d end up, broken and lost in space, holding on to a wolf and longing for the comfort that he used to be able to find in Shiro. He doesn’t know where he’ll go from here - forwards, he thinks - if he can ever find the strength to put one foot in front of the other. If he can ever find the courage to walk up to Shiro and to extend a hand, swallowing his own guilt and doing everything in his power to patch up everything that had been broken. 

 

But that’s the future, and Keith is stuck in the past, reliving what would come to be the worst moments of his life, over and over and over again, watching as the man he loves suffers.

 

He holds Sasha harder as he remembers Shiro telling him that  _ he should have abandoned him.  _

 

And Keith cries and cries and cries.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, feel free to leave kudos and comments! <3  
> you can find me on tumblr @cas-tellation


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